India and Maldives Tours and Trips

This trip exceeded all my expectations. The stillness and solitude of the terrain. The beauty. The glacial ascent. My first time at altitude-and I loved it. Valerie, is a very wise, steady and trusted lead-a humble holder of stories and knowledge. And great food and guides too. And a wonderful group spirit. I could not have asked for more.

My first high-altitude hike - the Nubra Valley trek - and all I can say is WOW! With Valerie Parkinson as our tour leader, we were set up for an unforgettable adventure from day one. The incredible cook, knowledgeable guides, and fantastic camp crew made every moment a joy. If you’re thinking of exploring the Nubra Valley, you simply can’t go wrong with this trip. The only challenge now? Deciding on my next adventure!

Travelling as a family with two teenagers (16 and 14), we all had the most fantastic time in both Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Highlights for the adults included the variety of activities included in the itinerary, the elephant transition home and learning about the culture, history and geography of both Sri Lanka and the Maldives. The highlights for the teenagers were the train ride, the snorkelling and the elephant safari. We all loved the food and our guide, Ashan, in Sri Lanka was truly outstanding.

Looking back at our photos now we've returned to the UK we can't believe the amount we saw and the amazing experiences we had on this tour. Sri Lanka is an amazing beautiful country with some much going on - we only scratched the surface. Our tour leader Cham worked so hard to make sure that we had everything we needed, resolving our problems and sorting out food for our fussy son! His knowledge about Sri Lankan history and wildlife was immense. He even found the best place to buy genuine Sri Lanka cricket shirts for the sporty members of our group. The only thing we'd change was the pace of the second half of the Sri Lanka leg of the trip. The first half gave us time to chill and bond as a group, as well as hang out in the pool at Giritale and play cricket. The second half we moved every night and covered a massive distance, though interesting, this was quite tiring (especially for the kids), so we'd suggest that a two night stop in the middle of this element would resolve this issue easily. This was clear in the notes, however, as was the high chance of not getting the train. The pace did slow considerably for the Maldives element, with a lot of time on our boats travelling between reefs. The snorkelling was quite frankly mind-blowing, and even the more nervous swimmers loved it. The crew were fantastic, and the food was delicious. The guide knew his stuff, and made sure we had great snorkelling experiences. Our only criticism of this part of the trip was that splitting the group when we'd got to know each other and were getting on really well was disappointing. There were larger boats, and we'd have preferred to be on a single boat given how long we spent travelling separately. The crew did what they could to mitigate this by tying the boats together when we moored for snorkels, meals and overnight and that was great. All in all a thoroughly enjoyable trip, and with a few very small tweaks it'd be perfect!

The tour was perfectly organised, in a fairly short time you can see a very large number of sights. It was a surprise to me that this was actually an individual tour. For that price, this format is miracle, at the same time, all the guides are russian speaking, which was also pleasent.

Everything is organised perfectly, the driver took us a week through cities in india, coordinated us and our guides in each, showed us places where you can eat delicious food, abhinav is the best person and very loving and caring take all my request and helped me find Tea for my family.